“S” is for Slapawitz

During the past few months I’ve made several adjustments to my daily routines and observations – I don’t have to get up for work each morning, no matter how much time I have or how much I do I’ve realized my house will never be ‘clean’, the dog is much needier when there is a human continually available. One of the changes I’ve made has provided equal amounts of frustration and satisfaction, but that is something I’ll have to come to terms with since it’s a project I’ve committed to follow for a year. In a nutshell – I’ve challenged myself to take at least one photo each day whether it is something mundane or something spectacular. This commitment has forced me to stretch myself as a photographer since I don’t always leave myself much time to find potential subject matter, but it has also been great fun and helped me grow artistically.

For some reason, perhaps forever mashed down to the deepest levels of my subconscious, I decided that I would approach the photographs for each day of September with different guidelines than prior months. In retrospect, I kinda wish I had stuck to the original parameters, but I’m a little over halfway through so I’ve decided to stick it out. The brilliant idea that began the madness was the decision to make each PAD (photo a day) a picture of something beginning with the letter ‘S’. (“Who knows where thoughts come from? They just appear…” Empire Records) Sooooo – to make a long story short, I keep going out each day and searching for a new ‘S’ to photograph.

Yesterday’s choice is slightly abstract, but easily my favorite picture of the ‘S’ endeavor. I chose to use “Slapawitz” as my photo of the day and I think it turned out great! You’re asking what a “Slapawitz” is and I understand your confusion. Let me just say – Slapawitz isn’t a ‘what’, it’s a ‘who’. My pop, actually. Most people know him by a more benign name – Smith (which I should note, is still an ‘S’) – but there are those that also know his other incarnation – Izzy Slapawitz. If you haven’t ever followed wrestling, you may still be scratching your head and looking at your screen blankly. In order to remedy that I would recommend you take a few moments and Google “Izzy Slapawitz” to see what you find. Go ahead! I’ll hang out here and wait for you to come back!

Well, if you took a moment to search him out, you were probably directed to any number of wrestling websites featuring a crazy haired man described as a wrestler and manager mainly during the 70’s and 80’s, and linked to such people as the Devil’s Duo, Randy Savage, and Cowboy Bob Orton Jr., to name a few. Before you ask – yep. That’s my pop. I spent a lot of my childhood booing him at wrestling matches and waiting to play in the ring after the matches were over. ha!

Future posts will certainly pertain to that subject, but for today I just wanted to reflect on the fact that yesterday was the first time I had seen him work a wrestling venue in more than 20 years. It was as much fun as I remembered it and I was extremely happy and proud to use him as my ‘S’ of the day! Love ya, Pop! 🙂